New Year’s Resolutions: Do you make them? If not, why not? If so…Which one’s may bear fruit this year? Which one’s have made the list before? Which one’s are paradoxical to your current lifestyle or beliefs?

Question of the Night:

From his memoir American Drug Addict, Brett Douglas ~ I used drugs to elevate my mood. Gratitude does the same thing. If gratitude was indeed a guaranteed positive mood alterer, everyone would be a user. How can one inject gratitude into one’s stream of life? When gratitude does not deliver the desired effect for you, how do you react? How do you correct your expectations or reactions when gratitude fails to gratify?

Other Questions:

Greek philosopher Epicurus (paraphrased) ~ Seeking modest, sustainable pleasure without pain and fear constitutes happiness in its highest form. What words might you insert or append to this declaration to make it more realistic, attainable, or cogent? How successful have you been (would you be) in trying to moderate your pleasure(s)?

William (George) Miller’s prophecies of the Second Coming did not occur as expected in the 1840s, yet a religion, the Bahá’í Faith, holds the attitude that his predictions of 1844 events were accurate (with varying explanations like Miller had the wrong continent, wrong year, and wrong Second Coming). When a belief ignores visible evidence, is it because of the light or dimness?

John Clare (1793 – 1864) was “the greatest laboring-class poet that England has ever produced. However, in midlife, Mr. Clare was committed to an asylum. Dr. Matthew Allen wrote: He has never been able to obtain in conversation, nor even in writing prose, the appearance of sanity for two minutes or two lines together, and yet there is no indication of insanity in any of his poetry. Poetry was John Clare’s conduit to making connection with community. What other paths do complicated, intense, or timid individuals take to soulful expression? Is it expressed in their work? Their compassion? Their effusiveness? Their silence?

Karl Marx is often identified with the condemning quote: Religion is the opiate of the people. To be fair, the entire metaphor reads: “Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people”. With a clearer and more complete understanding of another’s conflicting beliefs, what happens to your view of that person? With a complete acceptance of a person, what happens to your prejudices toward their behavior?

Very Hairy (You’ll need a sharp razor)

Salman Rushdie’s novel The Satanic Verses includes an allusion to a possible incident in Islamic teachings where the prophet Muhammad mistook “satanic suggestion” for divine revelation. The effect of publishing this book caused extraordinary international mayhem, seemingly out of proportion to the cause. According to Hume’s razor: “If the cause, assigned for any effect, be not sufficient to produce it, we must either reject that cause, or add to it such qualities as will give it a just proportion to the effect.” What are your thoughts on this particular historical episode or other events (whether personal or historic) where “cause doesn’t balance out effect”?

Optional (You’ll need a strong constitution)

Once upon a time, a young mother, named America, had a precocious child, named Maryland, who’s declaration to her fellow citizens stated: “Profane words concerning the Holy Trinity are punishable by torture, branding, and, at a third offense, death without benefit of clergy.” Young America reprimanded her precocious Maryland with a paddle fashioned from the strong fibers of Article VI of her Constitution and the cohesive threads of her First Amendment. This analogy can be applied to many young nations. What are the signs that a country’s age has weakened the fibers and diluted the threads which, in the nation’s youth, required government by all of its people and tolerance of all of their beliefs?

Headline 12/7/2017 MSNBC: Man rescues rabbit from wild fire in California. Did you see this? A man hopping up and down in hairy panic, focused on something or someone, with the raging wildfire in backdrop. A tiny wild rabbit (probably a hare), marched across this flaming stage unhinged (presumably singed), into the arms of a man named Oscar (possibly a future Tony) and disappears into the night (surely daytime, but with all the smoke…). What was your gut reaction when you first saw this or heard about it? The comments on this news story contained some maligning of the harey Samaritan. What detriment did he done did?

Question of the Night:

Mahatma Gandhi ~ “Many people, especially ignorant people, want to punish you for speaking the truth, for being correct, for being you. Never apologize for being correct, or for being years ahead of your time. If you’re right and you know it, speak your mind. Speak your mind. Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is still the truth.” Describe the ripple effect of contentment with the accommodation of a lie. Describe the immediate disruption for pursuit of an unpopular truth. Which has more prevalence? Which has more impact?

Other Questions:

From the book ‘Autumn,’ by Karl Ove Knausgaard ~ To turn 40 (pick an age) is to realize that one’s limitations will last one’s whole life through, but also to know that all the time… new layers are being added to one’s character… What limitations of “self” do you believe are being referred to? How does added character manifest itself over time? If sterling character can be added over time, what are the personality flaws that might tarnish one’s character with age?

Donald Trump ~ I’m automatically attracted to beautiful. Not surprising, we all are – by definition. In Richard Prums’ new book, The Evolution of Beauty, he surmised that Darwin believed aesthetic mating choices were made largely by females. How does this idea scan with you? What is your theory on who chooses who in a significant relationship?

Is Darwinism the culmination of Martin Luther questioning orthodoxy, rendering concepts like heaven and hell irrelevant? If Darwinism trumps Creationism, what happens to heaven and hell?

Have you seen the Lactaid commercial? A lactose intolerant woman drinking her Café au lait, is surprised by a sarcastic talking cow (is there any other kind?) who mo(o)cks her unsuppressed gastrointestinal stress by imitating flatulence, disturbingly, by slowly releasing air from an inflated party balloon. A noble bovine appears and boots sarcastic cow out, then introduces the product Lactaid and states, “Try Lactaid, it’s real milk!” How is food real if it is adulterated? If nature joins compounds together and man puts then asunder, who is being served? What is being served (Parkay?) How can whole foods be of benefit when they are halved?

Not Recommended (if you scare) In 1973, Frenchy Fuqua, of the Pittsburgh Steelers football team, exhibited an obscure fetish (possibly Finnish). He would wear platform shoes having see-through heels that contained water and a live tropical fish selected from his aquarium to match the color of the day’s outfit. In 1979, Steve Martin made us aware of the popular Mexican sport of cat juggling in his movie, “The Jerk”. In 2006, Dubai hired a law firm when they were accused of trafficking boys to be used as camel jockeys in the United Arab Emirates. Exploitation of vulnerable populations, though evolving and inventive, remains popular and robust even today. What are the ingredients of exploitation that make its consumption so enduring? What forms of exploitation or degradation do you find yourself standing up against?

Optional (if you dare) Inspired by Barbara Kingsolver’s book, “Flight Behavior” ~ You stepped out from a flourishing hill top on a moon lit evening into a mysterious valley and chased an alluring butterfly into the darkness until the phases faded from waxing enchantment to waning endurance and, finally, to the impossibility of a return. What were the circumstances you left? What were you chasing? How do your current conditions compare to those once flourishing on the hill top in the moonlight once upon a time?